Project Log

Streamlining academic administration

An ERP implementation helped the University of Petroleum and Energy Studies to collaborate more closely with its suppliers and build stronger relationships with vendors. Ashish Bharadwaj, Associate Director, IT, UPES shares insights from the project with Mohd Shariff PA

The University of Petroleum and Energy Studies (UPES), is the first domain-specific university in India that focuses on studies and research on energy and offers specialized Graduate, Post Graduate and Doctoral courses accredited by the Energy Institute, UK and is recognized by the University Grants Commission. In a short span of time it has emerged as world-class learning institution. Right from its inception, the university has focused upon core areas of teaching, research and consulting. It has three campuses in India that are located at New Delhi, Rajahmundry in Andhra Pradesh and Dehradun (the main campus).

Bharadwaj comments that, “We had outgrown our IT systems that required integration— the setup had become fragmented with individual islands of information available in the system being used by different departments.” Moreover with this growth, the university’s multiple, stand-alone legacy systems became increasingly unresponsive. There was no central system to manage the different business processes across locations. All of this had increased the amount of work required on different issues, which was not the core activity as far as UPES, was concerned. This resulted in these processes performing sub-optimally.

Further, there was no real-time availability or seamless delivery of data. Management had started to experience a perennial problem of having to wait to access data from different departments and locations. This was adversely affecting decision-making as information was not just delayed, but at times was incomplete and out-of-date.

Even though the regional offices were connected with 2 Mbps managed MPLS VPN connections, it was hard to access data from different departments. This was affecting the smooth functioning of the institution. This level of connectivity set the ground for an enterprise application to be deployed—one that would bring all functions under a common umbrella. UPES decided it was time to unify its business systems with a single enterprise resource planning (ERP) application to support a variety of processes. Moreover the university was keen to extend its computing avenues to the academic section.

A solution with depth

“We had structured evaluation sessions during which we evaluated many small and local vendors to provide the suitable solution for the institution and at the end we decided to go with SAP. It was the only ERP vendor that had functional depth in its product and whom we found capable to cater to our requirements—particularly in the areas of Finance and Accounts,” said Bharadwaj. Being built on platforms and technologies that are future proof in terms of scalability, platform neutrality and reliability, SAP was a perfect match for the UPES.

“The decision to adopt SAP was difficult and we thought this is some thing hard to reach, but it was worth the effort in the end. We went live with SAP ERP 2005 ECC 6.0 on January 2007,” he added. The SAP system is now providing UPES with strong intra-organizational linkages, information sharing and efficient management of resources. The objective was to automate business processes, unify data in a single source for all business units, gain access to data anytime, anywhere, implement collaborative and systematic operational management, improve service delivery and integrate data seamlessly across business units. “We selected the SAP ERP application and the SAP for Higher Education and Research (SAP for HE&R) solution portfolio, which includes the SAP Campus Management application,” said Bharadwaj. The implementation was done on a jointly by UPES and L&T Infotech Ltd, the implementation partner for the project and is an expert in SAP’s core modules.

Faster implementation

“SAP has brought world class experience and best practices to our organization in the areas we have implemented,” he added. When any organization plan for the migration [data and application], it is bound to face integration and data migration challenges. The biggest challenge lay in the implementation model opted for and other complexities where change in the management and deploying effective workflows for essential business processes. “We received extensive help and assistance from SAP Consulting, Singapore—particularly from the Product Manager, Guat Hoon Lee. We went live with SAP ERP 2005 ECC 6.0 system in a short period of 75 days following each stage in the ASAP implementation methodology,” said Bharadwaj.

Sufficient flexibility was provided in the system allowing the organization to deploy it in the best possible way to meet its business requirements. Minimal business process re-engineering (BPR) was required during the implementation, since extensive rethinking of the processes and the definition of key functional roles and responsibilities had been carried out prior to embarking on this project. However, people had to be sensitized that a process, once defined for an organization should be followed for the greater part – with only rare exceptions coming in. UPES also wanted to consolidate access to all of its different systems, processes, and information into a single place and found the answer in SAP Enterprise Portal. The implementation of SAP was a great step forward for the university’s administrative systems and part of a broader vision for UPES.

Simplify and automate

All departments and functional areas can now work on a common platform leading to numerous process benefits and fewer errors. A vast improvement has been seen in almost every area of the university’s operations. Different business units have been integrated. SAP has streamlined administrative processes, brought in increased operational efficiencies, while providing real-time access and visibility across the organization. Top management does not have to wait for a department to submit data—it is now readily available in the system for them to use.

“The SAP deployment has given good RoI to the university and we estimate it to be 30% year on year at current scale of operations. Additionally our internal business, administration and accounting processing time have been reduced by 30% and transactional accuracy rate has gone up by 15%,” added Bharadwaj.

Faster operations and strategic benefits

The implementation has helped in getting corporate-wide visibility with a greater ability to quickly generate reports and make strategic decisions, while the finance department uses the software to generate reports based on real-time data. Closure on financial accounts has also become far easier. Taking care of Financial Management and budgeting, SAP has enabled proactive financial planning, real-time budget visibility, consolidated financial reporting, streamlined cash flow activities, and optimized financial transactions.

In the area of procurement too, SAP has helped UPES minimize costs and enabled both plan-driven and ad hoc purchasing, while ensuring compliance with procurement best practices. Employees in procurement use the SAP software to streamline purchasing which leads to improved supplier relationships – all of which helps the University save time and money.

Another key benefit we have realized are in terms of decreased workload for reconciliation between locations (campuses), increased efficiencies and reduced timelines for end of year statement generation. We have been able to cut our reconciliation time between locations by nearly 80% after adopting this system. The implementation of SAP has helped UPES to achieve its goals of consolidating information from different sources, providing the right information to the right person at the right time, allowing for standard reporting and analysis, while improving operational performance and enabling informed decisions.

SAP has also been able to provide UPES a greater insight into its spending habits, which has enabled it to source from best value suppliers and negotiate favorable trading terms. It also allows the university to collaborate more closely with its suppliers and build stronger relationships with its vendors. SAP has provided a strategic approach to information management that delivers key information to decision-makers in the appropriate form and at the precise time they need it to take effective action.

“With SAP HE&R we are getting real-time access to student data, seamless integration of data across all business units, a single window with complete access control for the entire organization’s data, information, knowledge resources, and improved communication among faculty and students. These are all significant improvements over the previously existing environment comprising of legacy systems,” he added. For the University, working with the SAP solutions has meant greater convenience for both students and faculty, thanks to streamlined processes and easy access to information brought-in by the system. At the same time, the administrative burden in the University has also seen a favorable change.

The SAP Enterprise Portal is used to provide self-service capabilities to students and faculty for basic functions like viewing one’s own details, grading, and change of contact information. It gives users a central access point for their information needs, which translates into improved efficiency and time saving.

“After sometime time when we think that the SAP system is stabilized, we would take up payroll in the HR implementation,” concluded Bharadwaj.

mohammed.shariff@expressindia.com